Today it has happened 3 times that the opposing team has started the play. This added to the difficulty when the other team got a lucky run. Surely this is new - I have never had this happen before and I win 250-300 trophies per week. Maybe it is to do with the prospective ‘choose difficulty’ option in the next big update ? Anybody else had this happen?
I had this bug several months ago and reported it on the steam forum back then. You must be very lucky to get such a rare bug three times in one day 
The choose difficulty doesn’t affect player turn.
When the opponent starts first, did you just finish another game? If so did you end the game with an extra turn?
I don’t think there is a ‘choose difficulty’ yet - that is something that may come in the next update from what I’ve seen on the forum. When the opposite team started I just carried on. I didn’t lose any of the times it happened - but I can see that we get an advantage being able to start play each time.
I’m on Steam and the opponent seemingly started twice yesterday, all during Invades, yet the game also seemed to freeze; it was the opponent’s turn but he wasn’t making any moves. I waited a couple minutes and then just X’d the game and restarted. The second time, there was a very quick bump in the grid during setup (like it slightly rose and fell) before putting the down arrow on the opponent.
I’ve had this happen sometimes on my iPad, but it’s rare. It’s happened in some arena battles and I think at most twice in PVP. Some of the time, after this happens either I or the enemy will make a match, and one of the gems doesn’t fall right, leaving a blank space; the opponent never makes their next move. Other times, the opponent starting doesn’t affect anything.
I believe this is likely also related to a bug in the Treasure Hunt minigame, in which the first turn sometimes happens without you. When this occurs, the board “jitters” as if a match was made and I have 14 turns left. However unlike the opponent-starts-first bug, the minigame does this about half the time.
Hi All,
This is a known bug and we have had reports of this happening.
This was happening when the game started up and the board had to re shuffle when the game started up and this for some reason counted as your turn, this is why the opponent looked like it was starting the game with the first move.
We have fixed this issue in the next patch update.
Thanks,
Gems Of War Support Team